Patriotic tunes?

Whistle
1

A group I play with is doing a gig July 1st at a historical site for a “middling” (not rich) Maryland plantation on a tributary of the Cheaspeake Bay. The hosts want us to play some patriotic tunes along with our usual Irish and Old-time.

We don’t know the usual patriotic tunes (Star-spangled Banner, America, etc.) so we’re looking for tunes from traditional music that’ll fit the bill.

Do you have any suggestions for tunes in the Celtic and Old-time traditions that meet any of these requirements:

  • sound patriotic?
  • are about patriotic themes?
  • actually were patriotic tunes back in history?

The few we’ve come up with include:

  • 8th of January (Battle of New Orleans)
  • Liberty
  • Year of Jubilo
  • Ashokan Farewell (because of Ken Burn’s Civil War series)
2

Yankee Doodle works well on whistle.

3

The Girl I Left Behind Me.

Jason

4

Check out this link, Fife music from the Flute forum. Good resource for Tunes
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=50947

5

Try here: http://www.guitarnut.com/folktablature/index.html. The Battle Hymn of the Republic sounds great on a Gen Bb.

6

Yep all that fife and drum stuff works great on whistle. A favourite of mine is “Jefferson and Liberty” which is a terrific, ancient-sounding tune. It can be heard, played over and over again, on the soundtrack of “Glory”.

7

Yes, it’s an Irish-rooted tune, also called ‘The Gobby-O’. You can find it in Ralph Sweet’s ‘Fifer’s Delight’ book.

Another good one that people will have heard before is ‘The British Grenadiers’.

8

Thanks for all the great ideas! I’ll start trying them out.

9

This land is your land

10

The most patriotic of the bunch, assuming you sing Woody’s words, and not the ones they taught us in school.

11

Thanks.

America the Beautiful is a lovely tune. I know you’all say
you don’t know it, but if I understand you’re
just playing tunes, not singing. Anyway, just playing
patriotic tunes works fine. Surely you can learn it
in a few minutes. Call up the midi online.

12

About a year ago or so, I was playing the US Navy’s song on the whistle… Anchor’s away me boys… Anchor’s away (dum dum dum)… You get it.

13

Gary Owen and Rising of the Moon are both fun and have patriotic overtones.

I love the “subversive” verses of This Land. It’s amazing how few people realize it’s a protest song.

My favorite:
As I was walking, I saw a sign there
and on that sign it said no trespassing
but on the other side it didn’t say nothing
Now that side was made for you and me

I DO teach my elementary kids those verses. Without them it’s a fairly empty, brainless song.

Tom

14

One of my favorite Civil War tunes would be Battle Cry of Freedom. Very patriotic, too.

15

So take your slogan
And kindly stow it.
It this is our land you’d never know it.
Let’s join together and overthrow it.
This land’s NOT made for you and me!

16

scotland the brave :smiley:

17

I suppose if you’re Scottish in origin tha’d work. :slight_smile:

18

“The Fifer’s Delight” from Ralph Sweet is a fabulous source for patriotic/historic American(and Celtic) songs. Get “The Fifer’s Delightful Companion” if you want harmonies to nearly everything in the first book!!

Here’s another list of tunes yet to be mentioned:
Battle Hymn of The Republic
Marching Through Georgia
Goober Peas(not patriotic but still reminiscent of simpler times)
Bonnie Blue Flag
When Johnny Comes Marching Home(try following it with Shule Aroon aka My Johnny Has Gone For a Soldier)
Dixie(I lost track of where you’re at…but if it’s above the Mason-Dixon line you should probably scratch this one)

More recent: Sea To Shining Sea
The Marine Corps Hymn
anything by John Phillip Sousa!
for sh*tsNgiggles: We’re Not Gonna Take It!